Fort Worth Texas

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Ohhh, The Hot Mess We’re In

/ Phil Strawn / 14 Comments

Here in Texas, we have a pickup truck full of local sayings and down-home descriptions, and one of our favorites that covers most of our female-induced situations is called ” A Hot Mess.” Sounds sort of like a hormonal-induced biography of Marilyn Monroe’s or Elizabeth Taylor’s life. What it really means is everything is “FUBAR,” another good one that came out of WWII. My father wouldn’t tell me the real meaning until I was a teenager. F…. Up Beyond Any Repair, you get the drift. All of us kids used it, because all of our fathers served in WWII. We heard it daily.

I can clearly hear those angelic acidic voices of my mother and grandmother talking about an unruly cousin (usually Cookie) or an aunt or uncle, or a neighbor being a “hot mess,” or a situation that is out of their control, which was usually me.

I wasn’t a bad kid; like Sinatra, I did things my way and paid for it in the usual way: a Tupperware, 9″ x 12″ hard plastic cake storage container to the butt. I still have a faint Tupperware emblem scar embedded in my left buttock, a free lifelong birthmark compliments of my sainted mother with the arm strength of an NBL pitcher. Then, to make matters worse, she put my birthday cake in the same container, and I had to suffer the humility of blowing out those candles of that lovely cake sitting atop that cruel instrument of punishment. Dr. Johnson, my pediatric MD, would always ask me about that scar when giving me my monthly penicillin shot in the butt for whatever ailed me. It was a fairly new drug back then, so you got a shot for everything. He would say, “Well, at least she made you a cake.” He was an old Army doctor and smoked unfiltered Camels while he examined me. I think he died young while mowing his lawn.

If I’m seeing things right, this country is in a “hot mess.” We got ragheads with missles and exploding drones blowing up large oil filled ships sitting in bean bag chairs working their Gameboy controllers, I-ugh-atolla’s killing all the young folks that want a normal life, crazy ass socialist trying to take over our governement, and are succeeding, a smiling sleezy-assed commie mayor of New York trying to turn one of our greatest cities into a third-world shithole, a million Somali’s ripping off us taxpayers and driving around in Lamborginis and Porsches, Lake Wobegon has gone to hell, and all the strong women and good looking men and above average children have left and moved to Texas and Florida, even old Garrison split for New York and is now trying to escape from Madison Ave to somewhrere where he can go for a walk without hearing a call to prayer five times a day on a sound system bigger than Lynard Skynner’s. I’m telling you folks, we are in a “Hot Mess.” One thing about Texas is, we all have guns, ammo, lots of coldbeer and pork rinds, HEB frozen pizzas, and we are pissed off most of the time because it’s so hot, so the “Hot Mess” the rest of the world is in doesn’t faze us that much. Governor Abbott already issued hunting tags for all the terrorists we want to shoot; limits don’t apply, and the taxidermy mounting fee is fifty percent off.

Don’t get me wrong, we still have a “hot mess” down here, but ours isn’t as bad as it is where you are. So, if it gets unbearable in your hometown, come on down to Texas; we’ll watch out for ya.

“

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Don’t Ask The Addled Texan Floating On The Lone Prairie

/ Phil Strawn / 16 Comments
This picture is only partially AI-generated. Me, the hair, the hat, the background, and the Mandolin are real; the suit is taken from Porter Waggoner. I hate AI.

Being a native Texan is a damn challenge, and not every one of us can pull it off without a series of small nervous breakdowns, panic attacks, and, of course, a few bottles of coldbeer (it’s considered a form of cultural blasphemy to pronounce it as two words in Texas). So, we tend to meld our words into one; it makes it easier to speak without sounding like a high roller walking around in high cotton. We do have our own language down here in the Lone Star State.

I consider writing my job now, perhaps my trade. So far, I’ve not made a nickel for any of my literature, possibly because it’s about Texas, my childhood, country music, and all the characters I’ve met along my journey on the lone prairie. There is a book of short stories in the works, but an addled mind has a problem picking out twenty of the four hundred I’ve written over the decades.

Gardening was a passion for a while; I became a master gardener and imagined my landscape to equal George Harrison’s Friar Park or Martha Stewart’s backyard. It’s too hot in this part of Texas to keep anything alive, so all of my plants are expiring, begging for me to put them out of their misery. I had a small service for two purple Salvias this morning, and last night, I saw another Rat at our bird feeder. Momo would cook for the little Avians every morning if I didn’t stop her.

Music would be my other pursuit of happiness. Still, I mostley play with our church band, which is primaraly worship songs: ain’t no Amie, The Weight, or Like A Rolling Stone getting played in the sanctuarary, even though we have the intrumentation to pull it off, and some of the musicians actually can play that type of music, mostley myself since I am the oldest old codger on stage and the rest of the bunch is in their 40s, and that leaves me as the “old relic from another era, the Woodstock generation, that played Hendrix and The Band, and tried to change the world, but failed miserably and had to go back home with our collective tails between our legs. Our parents laughed, “See, you stupid ass, we told you so.” They were half-right.

My main interest now is Mandolin: bluegrass, jazz, country, the music played by Ricky Skaggs, Sierra Hull, Mike Marshall, Sam Bush, Molly Tuttle, and Billy Strings, and of course Bill Monroe.

When I was a wee child, maybe five, my father brought home a tater-bug mandolin, likely given to him by a musician friend. I learned four or five two-finger chords, and then grew bored with the instrument: Cartoons were more interesting. My father was a professional country fiddle player, so he should have whooped my butt and made me stick with it, but my mother intervened. One musician in the home was more than enough. Now, that I’m older and bored with the guitar I’ve been playing since the age of twelve, I’ve gone back to the Mandolin and fiddle. I’m much too far down that rabbit hole to stop, and Momo, my wife, says it’s the only thing, except a trunk full of medications, keeping me alive: she is always right. If I stopped playing, within twenty-four hours I would assume room temperature and the paramedics would have to bag me and haul me away. So, I keep playing and writing. It’s a vicious circle, one that I created for myself. There is no escape, and I can’t take it with me when I go, and neither can any of you reading this. Everything stays here except your new suit and no shoes.

We are taking a road trip to Mount Rushmore in September, and I hope that seeing those big faces, Custer’s Last Stand, and maybe Yellowstone will revive us and add a few more years on our punch card. I plan to watch Not by Northwest before we go, so I can see how I could climb on Teddy Roosevelt’s nose and not fall off. I also have plans to run with the Bison, which is the newest form of self-destructive dopamine hits that old folks do these days. I’ve always wanted to pet a Buffalo, or a wolf, so this will be my chance.

I’m no travel writer or influencer, so don’t expect anything spectacular or even interesting when we return. I may do a Podcast full of rants, but that would be it. God Bless the Alamo and Texas.

The Texan

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New York, New York: Old Blue Eyes Would Have A Stroke.

/ Phil Strawn / 8 Comments

If Frank were still around, he would be giving his mafia buddies a call to do something about this grinning commie Rat-bastard who got himself elected mayor by the young nepo-elitist children of the rich democrats. Frank was a Dem, but from a different era, when it meant love of country and, of course, JFK, Jackie, Marilyn, and Ava. I read today that the old handsy storyteller from Minnesota, Garrison Keillor, is pissed that his taxes on his multi-million dollar townhouse are going to be doubled, so he is going back to his cozy little Lake Wobegon, that mythical magical place where all the women are strong, the men good-looking, and the children above average. Sounds like a tidy place to reside.

Give New York City a year, and all the party girls will be covered in Burkas, the single Beta-sexual men will be dating goats, and the Build A Bear stores will be converted to “Build A Bomb” stores for all the newly indoctrinated child terrorists. Sounds like we need Supergirl, Superman, Super Dog, Cat Woman, Soupy Sales, the Fantastic Four, and maybe Batman to fly into Laguardia. My son and his family briefly visited there on their way to Niagara Falls, and he thinks his DNA may have been damaged.

So this is what our nation has come down to: Socialists, communists, foreigners, and non-citizens calling the shots, and we sit back and do nothing while they steal our country and tax money from us. If you are a Democrat and read my blog, I’m calling you out. It’s nothing personal, only the way 88 million more Americans and I feel.

Let me rub some more Gulf of America sea salt into our gaping national wound: guess what! Hollywood is as dead as a Rat that just ate a piece of yummy bait inside the guts of my hot tub. Fort Worth, Cowtown, home of the shit-kicking, rodeo-riding, pickup-driving, cowboy-boot-wearing country music playing and listening boys and girls, is now the new Hollywood, thanks to a real cowboy-turned-producer, Taylor Sheridan. The girls here in Fort Worth don’t need Ozempic; they look quite nice in their Wrangler jeans and Justin boots, and they live off of Mexican food, Whataburgers, and Shiner Bock.

It would be nice if old Blue Eyes could come back for one more concert at Madison Square Garden, now that Taylor Swift is a has-been and Ella Langley, a true country artist, has outsold Mariah Cary and the long-gone Whitney Houston for fourteen straight weeks with “Choosing Texas.” Yeah, take that LA music machine.

None of this is political; it’s just how I feel most of the time. Hold my beer and watch this, hide and watch, and get off of my lawn.

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The Boy Who Became Sweet Baby Jesus

/ Phil Strawn / 19 Comments


The year was 1955, and at six years old, by my grandmother’s observation, I was a heathen child, almost feral. Being raised in the big city of Fort Worth on a steady diet of television featuring Popeye, Bugs Bunny, and the Three Stooges, I was living in a religious void. I saw the “good book” as a large decoration on the dining room table and read it at Christmas, Easter, and family funerals. Recently, I had been attending a few services at the Poly First Baptist Church with my parents. Still, the preacher, with his over-animated, stage-stomping Hell-and-Damnation rants, scared me more than The Mummy and Frankenstein combined. I was wishing for a fatal disease to strike so I would be bedridden and couldn’t attend.


I had been visiting the farm for six weeks, from June into July, and it was my first time away from my parents. The farmhouse had no television, only a radio. By the third day of no cartoons, I had the shakes and a low-grade fever. I did bring my Red Ryder BB gun and enough ammo for a summer’s worth of popping some of my grandmother’s five hundred chickens: the BBs bounced off their thick feathers, so none were harmed. Other than throwing dirt clods at Rattle Snakes, it was all the entertainment I could muster. Granny was a wise Cherokee, medical Shaman, and self-proclaimed Texas Biblical scholar, and she felt a week at the Baptist Church Vacation Bible School would fix me up and assure my acceptance into Heaven. I had no idea where Heaven was or when I would be required to visit, so I trusted my Granny would make my reservations.


Miss Ida Belle Mae and her younger sister, Rita Rose Mae, are the self-appointed teachers of our Bible school class of 25 children, ages 6 to 10.
Homely as a sack of poultry feed, the two are old maids and prolific spinsters rumored to survive on a tidy income from a single pumping oil well on their farm. It has been a long-standing gambling bet at the Domino Parlor that that gasping little well will give it up. To date, no one has won the wager.
When the holidays come around, the two sisters are rumored to donate a substantial sum to the church. To appease the ladies and keep the money flowing, the kind but timid preacher is forced to let them do what they please. Their pleasure this summer will be teaching Bible school. The preacher will regret this decision.


On the first day of Bible School, our class cut, pasted, and signed 270 prayer cards for the sick and unfortunate children in Africa; quite a feat for 25 kids. Most of us were injured and bleeding from paper cuts and glue poisoning from licking the envelopes. My tongue swelled up the size of a buttery biscuit. The kid beside me glued his lips shut, and Miss Ida had to pry them open with a spoon and a douse of grape Kool-Aid.


Miss Ida sent us outside to lounge under the trees and recover from our stint on her assembly line. There is no recovery; it’s 96 degrees and not a rustle of a breeze, but it’s better than forced child labor.


A black Cadillac sedan stops in front of the church, and an older lady escorts a boy of maybe nine or ten into the main building. The kid wears a black suit, white shirt, and red bow tie. We assume he is here for a funeral or a baptism, but don’t care because it’s too hot to move or think. Miss Ida rings the lunch bell. Yummy peanut butter, grape jelly sandwiches, and lukewarm Kool-Aid await—the usual menu for Bible school attendees.
After we are seated, Miss Ida brings the suited boy to the front of the class. She is beaming like a schoolgirl attending her first prom In a giddy voice, she addresses us,


” Children, I would like to introduce Master Stewart Sweet. His daddy is the famous tent-preaching evangelist and faith healer from San Angelo, the Right and Honorable Doctor I.M. Sweet. Master Stewart will attend our Bible school and lead the children’s Bible study on Sundays for a few weeks. I can assure you that he is quite capable since he has read the Bible three times, all before he was six years of age, and preaches at his father’s tent revivals.” Miss Ida doesn’t know this kid’s back story, nor do we, but it will soon come to light.


As a class, in childish camaraderie, we are unimpressed and instantly dislike this brat. Will this kid, dressed as a department store dummy, preach to us about sin and saving our little souls? At our young age, the worst thing we could have done is tell a few small lies, steal a cookie, or shoot a chicken with a BB Gun. Hell and Damnation are years away for most of us.


Young Master Stewart steps from behind Miss Ida’s table and slams his ten-pound Bible down on the floor so hard it sounds like a firecracker. A few girls in front are shaken and begin to whimper.
The young preacher Stewart raises his hands to the Heavens and launches into a tirade that can only be considered appropriate for adults designated to luncheon with Beelzebub within the hour.


After ten minutes of our first fiery sermon, we are ready to wrap this kid in scotch tape and send him to Africa with the prayer card. Suddenly, he stops and begins to bless our food. He bows his head and, in a reverent whisper, says,


” Dear Lord, these children, wretched little hayseeds that they are, cannot survive on the butter of the Peter Pan and the mush of Welches. They need a substantial amount sustenance so they may be healthy to accept your holy spirit. Starting tomorrow, a glorious feast of grilled sausages wrapped in soft buns, the salad of the potato and the ruby-red fruit of the melon will be their manna from Heaven. Amen.”


Miss Ida is speechless. The little preacher kid has called her food “garbage,” and she has to sit there and take it. The class is now a bit impressed. This kid is good.
The sisters, rattled by Young Sweets’ blessing, need time to recover and devise a plan to send this kid back to San Angelo as soon as possible. So they send the class outside to suffer in the heat again.


Miss Rita delivers the ice cream freezer and instructs two larger boys to start churning for the afternoon dessert. Allowing us to have ice cream may be the only kindness these two witches grant us.


Twenty-five minutes into the churning, the ice cream remains a pitiful mush. Now impatient for their treat, the class gathers around the freezer, demanding an explanation. We are kids and know nothing about how these machines work. You add ice, salt, liquid, and chur. That’s all we know.


Young Stewart parts the crowd and approaches the ice cream freezer. He kneels and places both hands on the contraption. In a soft, almost inaudible voice, he says a small prayer and violently shakes the machine a few times. He rises and declares, “There shall be delectable ice cream in five minutes.” He is right. This ice cream might be the best we have tasted in our young lives. Little Master Stewart fixed the ice cream machine. A girl calls it a miracle.


After ice cream, Miss Ida calls the class for Bible study and a story. Her stories are known to last too long, and kids tend to lose interest and fall asleep. Her voice is that of an older man who smokes two packs of Camels daily — raspy and accentuated by the occasional hack.


Bitsy, the smallest and youngest girl in class, is seated at the front table and is in distress. The new kids in the class are unaware that she has an immobilizing speech defect. She stutters, and her vocabulary is limited to a simple yes or no. The little girl is wide-eyed and squirming in her chair.
Miss Ida knows her problem, and when Bitsy politely raises her hand to request a bathroom visit, Miss Ida insists that she must stand and ask aloud in front of the class. Of course, Bitsy, immobilized with fear and embarrassment, wets her pants. Miss Ida snickers and calls her a little baby child. We all knew these two sisters were mean, but now we know they are darn right evil.


Master Stewart comes from the rear of the class and stops in front of Bits. He turns and gives the two sisters a “stink-eye” that makes them fall back into their chairs, white with fear.
He bends down, takes Bitsy’s head in his tiny hands, and declares,

” Take this affliction from this small child. Purvey upon her the diction of William Shakespeare and the wisdom of Mark Twain. Let her words flow forth like the singing of Doves on the south wind. She will never again stammer or grasp for words and will someday speak to massive gatherings of people who will clamor to hear her message. Amen.”


The class sits in stunned silence. Healing the ice cream machine was a warm-up compared to this. A girl from the back of the room yells, “Thank you, Sweet Baby Jesus.” And there it is: Young Stewart will now be known as Sweet Baby Jesus, or just Sweet Baby for short.


Miss Ida and Miss Rita sit rigidly in their chairs, eyes glazed and staring into nothing. The amount of “stink eye” Stewart, now known as Sweet Baby Jesus, put on them must be compelling.
He approaches the two women, lays his small, soft hands on their wrinkled, sweating foreheads, and mumbles a few words. His back is to the class, so we have no idea what is said. The two evil sisters shiver a few times and awaken from their “stink eye” trance. They stand, gather themselves, and tell the class they are going home. Master Stewart will teach for the duration of the Bible school. They depart the church as if in a zombie trance.


Sweet Baby Jesus takes his Bible, sits on the edge of Miss Idas’ desk, smiles, and says, “Now, let’s hear some real Bible stories straight from the source.” It was a beautiful afternoon full of unexpected laughter and acceptance. For once, we kids found that listening to the word of God from another kid made us feel good, sort of like hot oatmeal on Christmas morning.


The following day, the preacher greets us with the news that young Stewart is back in San Angelo and will teach the class for the remainder of Bible school. Of course, we were sad to see our new Sweet Baby Jesus depart our Bible school. Bitsy, in between constant talking, sniffles, and wishes him the best.
The class wrote a letter to Sweet Baby, thanking him for his kindness to Bitsy and for putting the evil sisters in their place.


I attended the vacation Bible school for a few more summers, but it wasn’t the same without Sweet Baby, and I attended my last one at eight years old.
A few decades later, I read that the Right and Honorable Reverend Stewart Sweet, with assistance from his wife, Bitsy, had established an enormous ministry in Africa and healed everything from Beri-Beri to auto engines.
It looks like Sweet Baby Jesus is still doing a great job.

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Chuking Rocks At Each Other

/ Phil Strawn / 8 Comments
Four boys playing and throwing rocks in a dirt alley with old houses and a fence
Four boys joyfully play a spirited rock-throwing game in a gritty urban alleyway.

When I was a child in the 1950s, one of our favorite forms of retaliation against our enemy, the small group of hoodlum kids we called the ‘hard guys,’ from across the tracks, was the infamous rock fight.

As kids, we didn’t possess the strength to propel a stone fast enough to kill an enemy, but they hurt, especially when one pops you on the forehead or the back of your flat top haircut-wearing head while retreating from the fracas.

We were all masters of rock chucking and knew which rocks were the best for throwing: the larger gray stones that lined the railroad tracks across the field from the back of our house. The railroad furnished us the perfect weapon for rock fights, just the right size and weight, and hard edges that would raise a welt on young tender skin.

Georgie, our neighborhood firebug and the biggest titty baby of our gang, took one rock to the nose and had to have stitches, so our parents, after a series of butt-whoopings, ended that form of warfare. We still had BB guns, so that replaced the rocks, but presented a greater danger of shooting one’s eye out, like the classic 1984 movie, ” A Christmas Story. Not a one of us, or our enemy, lost an eye, but those BBs did sting through our jeans and T-shirts.

That description of past juvenile antics brings me to this point: we, meaning the American public and families, are still chucking rocks at each other, not actual stones, but words and actions driven by, news paper articles, television news, social media platforms, and the newest form of ammunition is the smartphone text; they’re all the same, and they hurt more than a small rock to the head and sometimes the wound never heals.

Political and religious tribalism is the newest and the worst form of family alienation. I know firsthand, because I go through it daily, and so does my wife, Momo. Our children and a few fair-weather friends and relatives are liberal Democrats, and we are conservative Christians, so we are easy accessible targets for alienation from their La La land of beliefs and ideology. We are not pious Bible beaters, and, sure, we drink cocktails and wine and beer, and we were teenagers with long hair, rock band playing fools, and a bit wild back in the 1960s. We weren’t real Hippies, but more of a middle-class version that bathed every day and didn’t hang out with the Manson family. We didn’t care for the Vietnam War, but we darn sure didn’t burn buildings, assault the police and citizens, and cheer on socialism like the younguns of today do so freely without guilt.

My grandfather once told me that to get along with family, never talk politics or religion, and he was correct. My father’s extended family on his mother’s side all lived in Fort Worth, within a few blocks of each other. During summer cookouts, a few of them always got into rabid arguments over politics and sometimes religion. Most of them were good, hard-drinking, night club dancing Baptists, but a couple were Catholic, so it was bound to happen. Fists flew, beer bottles zipped by our heads, and uncles and cousins rolled in the grass until one gave up. But that was the end of the disagreement; it didn’t go past the backyard fun, at least not until the next get-together. I cringe at using the term ” back in the day, and the good old days, but that’s when we were civil to each other and didn’t alienate family and friends.

Today, it’s a different world that I don’t recognize. Indoctrination and tribalism go hand in hand. The political tribalism goes both ways; each party is its own, and you insert religion and lack of belief in God and Jesus into the encampments, and it becomes a toxic mix that has ruined many a family gathering and destroyed relationships.

Now, we have texting, which is the worst form of communication. I will admit we use it to communicate with our church’s music ministry, friends, and family. It’s so easy, so non-committing, so bland, so lacking in tonality and reality that a simple few phrases can be taken as an insult or call to arms. It also signals that ” I don’t want to have a real conversation because that requires actual interaction and brain power to think about what you are talking about.” Texting is the newest form of ignoring human interaction; it says I’m too busy to have a conversation or what you have to say is not worth my valuable time. Texting is here to stay unless Elon Musk invents a brain chip implant that lets us communicate our thoughts via Starlink.

I’m looking forward to that implant.

Religion, Family, and a Baptism Gone Wacky

/ Phil Strawn / 15 Comments

Swimming With Jesus In A Cement Pond

I wrote this story some time ago. It was water Baptismal day at our church today, so I figured, why not share this bit of family history with my readers?

My first taste of religion came when I was six. A boy from Fort Worth, I was taken to the Polytechnic Baptist Church to witness the near-drowning of my young father. He was baptized by a man named Reverend Agustin Z Bergeron. The preacher, a certified Cajun from Chigger Bayou, Louisiana, was a legend, standing alongside only two others: Reverend J. Frank Norris and Billy Graham.

Someone in my family, an aunt or a cousin or all members thereof, thought that father’s soul needed saving to ensure his path to Heaven would be an honest one. I suspect it was his mother. She was a championship sinner with no apparent way to redemption, so convincing her only son to Baptism might also gain her entry to God’s domain as a parental guest. I also suspect that the bottles of hooch and the .38 Special in her traveling suitcase would be overlooked as she accompanied him through the pearly gates. Looking back on my family history, I now realize that the entire bunch of my father’s family was street rat crazy. They also loved alcohol and were world-class consumers of hooch. It didn’t faze them a bit that, back in prohibition, the entire bunch went temporarily blind from a bad batch of moonshine my grandmother’s brother brewed in the woods behind their house.

The Sunday of the Baptism was as hot as I can remember. The church was surrounded by large shade trees, but there was not a whiff of a breeze inside the building. Religion and suffering are one and the same. July in Texas is considered a preview of the weather in Hell, and the good reverend used it well.

I sat beside my mother. My little sister was in her lap, not yet a year old. My clothes were soaked with sweat. I might have wet myself and not known it. The summer heat rose from the wooden floor beneath us. Hell lay just below, waiting for us to waver, to lose our faith. Satan would pull us down through the cracks in the floorboards if we let go. It seemed so simple. I didn’t understand sin or what it meant to fall into Hell. Kids don’t think about such things.

Pacing the floor, Preacher Augustin moved from wall to wall. Behind him, the choir of big-haired women added their Amen and Hallelujahs, their voices sharp and clear. The pulpit held the preacher’s Bible, unused, but not forgotten. He did not need its leather-bound wisdom. He knew all he needed to instill fear in the hearts of those gathered in that church. The stifling air was drenched in repentance.

The sermon concluded, and the baptism commenced. Father was the last on the list.

Mother had dressed him in a new white shirt and a black tie. With his new black horn-rim glasses, he looked like the television comedy star, Steve Allen. The shirt was stiff as cardboard, making it hard to move. One might expect that if someone were dunked in water, a swimsuit or at least a robe would be appropriate. But no, Baptists preferred it genuine, fully dressed in their best clothes, shoes, watch, and wallet had to be saved.

Father’s name was called. Entering the pulpit from behind a velvet curtain, he climbed into the baptismal tank. I found it odd that a church would have a small swimming pool at the altar. A waist-deep concrete tub full of unpurified water from the Trinity River. How would one know that the occupants hadn’t released a stream of urine into the sacred water in their moment of personal repentance and acceptance? It’s a natural response akin to peeing in a lake. Father stood in the holy waters awaiting his deliverance. He carried the look of a trapped man; no escape route was available, so his fate was sealed. It’s not that he wasn’t ready to accept Jesus as his savior, but the whole scene felt off-kilter. The preacher smoked Camel cigarettes and drank iced tea while he preached, and the combination of the smell and his aftershave was awful.

Preacher Augustin wasted no time. He asked Father if he was ready to accept Jesus and be bathed in the Holy waters. Father mumbled a few words, and the preacher pushed him back into the Holy water. Time passed, it seemed like minutes, and along with lovely words and passages, Father was still immersed in the Holy waters. A hand, then an arm, reached up, flailing about. Finally, a leg broke the surface, and a shoe flew off. Still, Preacher Agustin continued the baptismal.

Looking back, it was common knowledge that father was a country musician and made his living playing in the beer joints along Jacksboro Highway. Preacher Augustin figured that since my father was a fully certified sinner, an extra dose of salvation was needed.

Father made it to the surface with seconds to spare. Sputtering and coughing, on the verge of death, he rolled over the side of the cement pond and lurched toward the side door of the church. Holding my baby sister, my mother grabbed me by my bony arm, and we made a hasty beeline to the car. Father was there waiting, dripping wet, looking like a bad meal on a china plate, but he was a saved man.

Bonnie and Clyde: The Glamorous Outlaws’ Secrets

/ Phil Strawn / 15 Comments

A Girl Has To Look Good When She Goes


I did not know that today was the anniversary of the killings of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, both from Dallas, Texas. I wrote this true recount some years ago, but would like to share it with my readers again. My late aunt Katy loved telling us kids about this whenever we were sitting around in her backyard eating watermelon and hot dogs.

Thanks to the new Netflix movie “The Highwaymen,” the two most famous outlaws from Texas are captivating a generation that has never heard of them. I’m referring to those two crazy kids from West Dallas: Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.

Their hijinx and daily run-ins with the law kept many a small-town newspaper in print and propelled the two young delinquents into living legends of their own time.

The car chases, robberies of banks, merchants, grocery stores, five and dimes, gas stations, gumball machines, lemonade stands, produce stands, and just ordinary citizens made spectacular fodder for the papers. They were the new folk heroes of the southwest, and as bad as these two were, their antics were pure journalistic gold. And, they didn’t mind killing a few lawmen and citizens if deemed necessary.

In the 1920s and early 1930s, my father’s Aunt, Katy Eberling, owned and operated a beauty salon on the corner of Rosedale and Hemphill Street in Fort Worth, Texas. For seven years, it was prosperous, allowing her to employ four beauticians and a manicurist. She was thriving and often turned away new clients or referred them to other shops. She wasn’t wealthy but made a darn good living for the times. Then, along comes that pesky old depression and she loses three beauticians and the manicurist because her clients now do their hair at home, or go to Leonard Brothers Department Store for two dollars less per set. Katy is weeks away from closing the doors when a visit from a new client changes her luck.

A cold December Friday afternoon finds Katy sweeping up the shop and preparing to close when a man and women enter through the back alley door.

The woman, a frail, bony little thing, is dressed in the best clothes that money can buy. A pale yellow cashmere sweater with a beige camel hair skirt. A string of pearls drapes her little neck. The man who accompanies her wears a three-piece pin-striped suit and a black fedora. These two are right out of Macy’s of New York. 

The woman is small, almost child-sized, no more than eighty pounds. She strides up to Katy, extends her tiny hand, and says, “ My name is Bonnie and could you please give me a wash, cut and set. I know its late, but I will pay you nicely if it is not too much trouble.”

Katy, having made little money that day, agrees and escorts her to the shampoo sink. As Katy is shampooing Bonnie’s hair for the third time, she notices the man sitting by the back door holding a shotgun in his lap. It is then that reality sets in, and Katy realizes who this new client might be. She removes her hands from the woman’s wet hair and retreats a few steps.

 Bonnie, sensing her fright, assures her in a kind voice, “Mam, I am here for a beauty appointment, we mean you no harm, and will pay for the service.” Katy assured that she will not be gunned down, completes the shampoo, and leads Bonnie to the beautician’s chair.

Once Bonnie Parker is seated, it’s as if she’s a lost Catholic girl returning to confession.

She recounts her childhood, her marriage at a young age, her desire to be a poet, to attend a good university, and to make her Mama proud. She then makes mention of that mongrel over there by the door and how he has ruined her life beyond repair.

 Once she begins the tales of their lives on the run, she cackles like a mad witch and has Katy laughing along with her. First-hand knowledge makes it all the crazier. Katy knows that Bonnie is leaving out the killing parts to spare her.

Two hours later, the appointment is finished. Bonnie Parker hands Katy six twenty-dollar bills and says she will be back next month, around the same time of day, if that is alright. Katy says that will be fine, and Bonnie departs with Clyde in tow.

Knowing she has to keep this to herself, she tells her husband Harvey, and no one else. Katy is full of remorse, knowing that the money she accepted is probably blood money or someone’s life savings, yet she took it because it would allow her to keep her shop open for a few more months. If she is truthful with herself, she enjoyed the excitement it produced.

The next month, on a Friday, the two most wanted crooks in the land arrive at 4:30 PM. Bonnie receives a wash, trim, and set, and the confessions continue. Katy earns another six twenty-dollar bills. This time, she is less remorseful and less frightened.

Bonnie visits twice more. The last visit was unnerving for Katy. Bonnie Parker is unwashed, and her clothes need cleaning. She is gaunt and hollow-eyed. There are no confessions or funny stories. Clyde remained in their car, and Bonnie, upon being seated in Katy’s chair, removed a 38 pistol from her purse and cradled it in her lap as if she was expecting trouble.

When the appointment is finished, Bonnie Parker checks her makeup in the mirror, straightens her skirt, and says to Katy, “ My mama always says, a girl’s gotta look good when she goes. How do I look, Miss Katy?” Katy replies, “ You look lovely as ever.”

Bonnie hands Katy eight twenty-dollar bills and says she will see her next month.

A few weeks later, Katy reads in the newspaper that Bonnie and Clyde were killed in a shootout with the law in Louisiana. Katy hopes she looked good when it happened.

This story was told to my cousins and me many times. When we were young, Aunt Katy left out much of the detail. As we grew older, into our teenage years, the story became more graphic and colorful. I had no idea Aunt Katy was so famous.

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Ask A Texan: The Lines In The Sand Are Drawn, And It’s 1933 And 1938 Again

/ Phil Strawn / 13 Comments

Advice From A Texan That Listens, Watches, And Learns From History

In 1931, as the sunlight cast long shadows across the Asian continent, Japan’s invasion of Manchuria marked the first stirring of trouble that would engulf the Pacific and all of Asia in the dark embrace of war. Seven years later, in 1938, the boots of German soldiers marched into Poland, igniting the fierce, relentless path toward war in Europe. With sinister determination, the Axis powers wove their tapestry of aggression, plotting to dominate and reshape their corners of the earth. At the same time, the unwary world stood on the precipice of chaos. The USA wanted no part of either party of aggression; It’s not because of neutrality or isolationism, we were in the midst of our own soup pot of misery, the Great Depression, which took America to its knees and shook the unshakeable into a fearful corner.

President Roosevelt had a vision, not one draped in golden accolades or celebrated with lavish banquets, but a steadfast resolve to steer the nation back to unity, offering hope and livelihoods to millions of hard-working citizens striving for a better life, or to bring back the comfort of the one that had vanished in the winds of the Dust Bowl.

Hitler drew a red line in the Atlantic down the west coast of the UK, and Japan drew the same line encompassing China and Manila, with Hawaii being the jewel that would put them closer to the United States.

Hawaii had thousands of Japanese who had immigrated, or were born on the island, who were fiercely loyal to their mother country and the Emperor, and the island was teeming with spies who reported back to Japan. We now call them sleeper cells. Germany had the same in most major cities in our country, mainly on the East Coast. We were in grave danger, just as we are today, but the countries are different, and harbor the same sinister ideology. Our homeland is infiltrated with insurgents that are loyal to Islam only, and their ideology is to take over our soil and put us on a prayer rug.

Jews were persecuted in Europe, but the United States had been doing the same for decades, only in a more evasive and gentler way. Iran and the Arab countries hold a mission to wipe Israel off the map of the world, and all the Jewish people that live there, and the United States, because of friendship and Christianity, is now included. Their goal is the same as the Nazis’, mass extermination of anyone who doesn’t bow to their ideology.

You can call me a racist, a hater, or anything you wish: I consider myself an American patriot, and can say with all confidence that the Muslim religion, like the Nazi movement in Europe and Japan in the 1930s, is not one of peace; it borders on being a radical, demonic ideology more than a religion, but it’s well-organized and sweeps entire countries into its bag of deception and hate.

We hard-working Christian Americans have allowed the demonic enemy to come to our shores and take over entire U.S cities, imposing their radical culture on our citizens. They are succeeding in changing our culture, as they have in France, England, Ireland, and most of Europe. Tribalism via empathetic immigration has taken the white Christian culture of these countries and turned them into Islamic strongholds. You will find more mosques than churches. This is the one thing that Hitler or Hirohito couldn’t accomplish because they had no willing Americans to support their plans.

Today, our country is full of enthusiastic, pliable, young, overeducated students and liberal professionals who are willing to aid Islam in dissolving our constitution that was declared in May, 250 years ago. America had better wake up and take up its call to arms. The lines are once again drawn, and now we have more enemies to see their task through.

We are staring the past in the face before us, and we damn well bond together and keep what our founding fathers so lovingly gave us.

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The Light Crust Doughboys Are On The Air

/ Phil Strawn / 17 Comments

One Hundred Fifty Years Of Texas Music

Back in 1985, my father’s band, The Light Crust Doughboys, recorded an album that was meant to focus on Texas music, some present, mostly passed. Country music wasn’t invented in Fort Worth, Texas, but Western Swing was. Bob Wills started as a Light Crust Doughboy, as did most of the great talent from the 1930s onward. I was fortunate to have known every man on this record for my entire life. The members on this album were: Jim Boyd, vocals and rhythm guitar; Jerry Elliot, vocals and electric guitar; my father, Johnny Strawn, fiddle, electric mandolin, and vocals; Bill Simmons- keyboard; Elden Graham, stand-up bass; Marc Jaco, electric bass; Maurice Anderson, pedal steel guitar; Dale Cook-drums; Phil Strawn, five-string banjo; and Gary Murray, announcer. The album was recorded at Sumet-Burnet Sound Studios in Dallas, Texas, in April of 1985. Recording engineers were Bob Sullivan and Bobby Dennis. It was produced by Marvin Montgomery.

Songs on the album, in order, are: Side One 1. The Light Crust Doughboy Theme Song. 2. The Yellow Rose of Texas, 3. When The Bloom Is On The Sage, 4. Texas In My Soul, 5. Beautiful Texas, 6. Waiting For A Train, 7. Old Joe Clark with myself on five string banjo and my father on fiddle, 8.Tumbling Tumble Weeds, 9. You’re from Texas, composed by the legendary Cindy Walker. Side 2, 1. If You’re Gonna Play In Texas You Gotta Have A Fiddle In The Band, 2. Amarillo By Morning, 3. Across The Alley From The Alamo, 4. In The Mood, done the Texas western swing way, 5. Does Fort Worth Evdr Cross Your Mind, 6. Sure ‘Nuf Texan, 7. Texas When I Die, 8. Closing radio them, the song the band has always used since their inception in the early 1930s.

They are inductees into the Western Swing Hall of Fame and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, and are part of the Country And Western Hall of Fame ( Chet Atkins always decided who would be inducted )

I traveled with these men for many miles, driving their van, loading and setting up their equipment, and playing bass, guitar, and banjo when one of them was ill and couldn’t make the show. Smokey Montgomery made me an official member of the band in 1984, which was the greatest honor any musician could dream of. The one cut from the album included in this post features my father (fiddle) and me (five-string banjo) playing the old 1800s standard, “Old Joe Clark,” with the rest of the Light Crust Doughboy band. We may grow old and die, but our music lives on forever.

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Ask A Texan: Are We Real, Or Just The Product Of AI?

/ Phil Strawn / 8 Comments
The Texan

I read X (Twitter) and sometimes post on there. I also have a notesfromthecactuspatch on Facebook, so I visit that site once in a while. What bothers me nowadays, well, every day 24-7, is the amount of false information on all the social media sites. Nothing is confirmed, and any dipwad with an account can put out any form of disinformation they dream up, and folks believe it as gospel. Does King Charles hate Trump? Doubt it. Does the PM of Italy hate him? I doubt that one, too. So who, and what do we believe? The MSM legacy media is so full of crap you can’t believe anything on the evening news, not even on Fox or Newsmax, so where does that leave us people who actually know how to read a newspaper and decipher the real world from the world of AI, which WordPress uses a lot for spelling and punctuating. AI scares me because not only does it know more than I do, but also because so much of it is incorrect. This post is not intended to be funny, but seriously worrisome. I’ll check back with ya’ll later. Have a good day, and ask Grok to cook you a good supper. The Texan.